The effective date of the new revenue recognition guidance is, at long last, here. CFO Magazine’s recent article, How Risky Are New Revenue Recognition Rules?, says “at some point after that, we’ll begin to see whether the new standard’s principles-based methodology is working as intended.”

The article points out that there are some judgment calls that must be made when it comes to the new revenue recognition rules.

Elements of judgment reside in each step of the new standard’s five-step process, according to CFO, including:

Step 1: Identify the contract(s) with customers. The collectability of consideration in a transaction is a concept that requires judgment in both the current and new guidance. Under the new guidance, collectability will be addressed in the determination of whether a contract exists, rather than whether revenue can be recognized. While the concept of collectability is not new, the judgments used to assess it will now be necessary at the outset of the revenue recognition process.

Step 2: Identify the performance obligations within the contract(s). Identification of performance obligations will be less restrictive under the new guidance and, therefore, contracts may have fewer performance obligations to be accounted for separately. The determination of these performance obligations will also require increased application of judgment.

Step 3: Determine the transaction price. The transaction price under the contract(s) involves a number of judgments, including consideration of variable and non-cash factors. Under the new guidance, entities will determine variable consideration by estimating either the “expected” value or the most likely amount in a range of possible amounts. As variable consideration will be based on an estimate, the timing of revenue recognition may be accelerated upon implementation of the new standard as compared to the more formulaic recognition of multiple elements over time, as currently required.

Step 4: Allocate the transaction price to the performance obligations in the contract. To allocate an appropriate amount of consideration to each performance obligation, an entity will now determine the stand-alone price at the outset for the goods or services. As stand-alone selling prices can be calculated or estimated in numerous ways that may require significant judgment, revenue recognition may be accelerated under the new guidance, particularly when compared to the current allocation methods.

Step 5: Recognize revenue when (or as) a performance obligation is satisfied. Under the current guidance, the percentage-of-completion method is generally used when recognizing revenue for contracts. Under the new rules, revenue is recognized when, or as, control of the asset is transferred to the customer. The determination of when control is transferred is often a matter of judgment, and will require consideration of when obligations are satisfied.

How will you make judgment calls when it comes to these new rules?

U.S. filers are expected to adopt the new accounting standards their first reporting period after December 15, 2017. For most companies, financial statements released in 2018 will be the first in compliance with ASC 606. To ease the transition, the Boards allow filers to use practical expedients in their application of the new accounting standards and choose between two adoption methods (full- and modified-retrospective).

About Robbie
Robbie Morrison has spent nearly 20 years helping customers build and deploy elegant technology and business solutions. From start-ups to enterprise-class organizations worldwide, his knowledge of the Microsoft Dynamics ecosystem and products helps SBS Group customers maximize ROI on technology investments.

Today, Robbie serves SBS Group customers in his role as Chief Solution Strategist where he provides thought leadership and manages the development of B2B solutions. Robbie received his MBA from the University of Georgia, Terry College of Business.https://www.linkedin.com/in/robbiemorrison

Digital transformation is one of the hottest topics when it comes to IT lately. In a recent CIO article, 7 Digital Transformation Myths, several business and IT people were interviewed, including Dan Doggendorf, VP of business operations and CIO for the Dallas Stars NHL hockey team. He says to avoid a digital transformational fail, you should take the advice author Stephen Covey has about “beginning with the end in mind. Otherwise, you’re just spending money on new cool toys. It’s the Christmas present you thought you wanted and got, but it sucks.”

Has this ever happened to you? You were dying for a Hatchimal but were disappointed after you opened it on Christmas morning? Ok, maybe not. Or the Xbox One X…ok, that sounds pretty awesome.

The article goes on to say that a successful digital transformation can deliver significant rewards. But these common misconceptions can undermine your company’s ability to achieve desired results. These are the most common myths:

Myth No. 1: Digital transformation is an IT function

I agree that this is a myth. We recommend that our clients involve more functional and operational business units than just IT in a digital transformation. To truly transform your business, you must have buy-in from all departments.

Myth No. 2: True transformation is a blue chip’s journey

We have solutions for businesses of all sizes and find that even the smallest company can successfully transform their business with Microsoft Dynamics.

Myth No. 3: Digital transformation is about reducing the workforce

People are nervous that they will be replaced by machines with all of the machine learning and IoT that’s out there now. But, as it says in the article, I think companies are seeing the opposite: The more automation and data analytics that organizations put in place, the more human beings are needed to drive the algorithms and understand what’s happening in complex buildings or manufacturing plants.

Myth No. 4. Digital transformation is all about the technology

The article says that a digital transformation is not just all about the technology, but invest[ing] in building the right culture, and also in the transformation of the IT function, including new skills and partnering opportunities.

This is where you must think about new and better ways to delight your customers. Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales and Customer Service empowers sales, marketing and customer service with insights to personalize relationships, predict customer needs, and increase sales.

Myth No. 5: Executive buy-in is a sure thing

You can’t always count on executive buy-in, and if executives are not fully on board with your project, it won’t be successful. Involve executives in digital transformation meetings from the get-go.

Myth No. 6: Digital transformation brings IT-business harmony

It’s not always harmonious when business people and IT people are in the same room. That’s what we are here to help with. SBS Group has a streamlined approach that ensures everyone is operating from the same blueprint, helping you realize business value faster.

Myth No. 7. The digital journey ends at implementation

Often companies believe go-live is when their digital transformation ends, and this simply isn’t true. Without regular check-ups, training, and re-training, there is a danger of low user adoption and a wasted IT budget. SBS Group’s E3 system integrates strategic planning, ERP and CRM, Business Intelligence and Analytics together, enabling the entire organization to create, communicate, measure and manage plans, objectives, and initiatives at the organization, team, and individual level.

I hope that you don’t fall into the trap of these digital transformation myths this holiday season. Let us know if you have a concern about any of the seven above and we can help. Join us for one of our upcoming webcasts where we talk about how Dynamics 365 can help.

Best regards,

Robbie MorrisonChief Solution Strategist, SBS Group

About Robbie
Robbie Morrison has spent nearly 20 years helping customers build and deploy elegant technology and business solutions. From start-ups to enterprise-class organizations worldwide, his knowledge of the Microsoft Dynamics ecosystem and products helps SBS Group customers maximize ROI on technology investments.

Today, Robbie serves SBS Group customers in his role as Chief Solution Strategist where he provides thought leadership and manages the development of B2B solutions. Robbie received his MBA from the University of Georgia, Terry College of Business.https://www.linkedin.com/in/robbiemorrison

It’s hard to believe that it has been 14 years since Oracle acquired PeopleSoft. Since then, PeopleSoft customers made the choice to stay with Oracle or move to a competing cloud alternative – but some companies are still using PeopleSoft. Are you one of them?

Support Until 2020

The support extension provided by Oracle through 2020 cannot hide the fact that PeopleSoft is mainly based on an architecture developed a couple of decades ago. The majority of PeopleSoft customers will have to determine whether they are well served by a product whose data design harks back to the mainframe.

Sticky ERP

Why do companies stick with PeopleSoft or other legacy products? That’s a good question. It may be because enterprise software is particularly sticky. Companies don’t change their ERP systems because the number of enterprise users are in the thousands, requirements are complex, implementation takes longer and costs are much higher. Therefore, expecting hundreds of large global companies to switch overnight to a new ERP system was never realistic. One thing is clear: doing nothing will become increasingly costly and will adversely affect your business.

Oracle Difficult to Implement

PeopleSoft customers can migrate to an Oracle product, and there is a popular misconception that it’s easy for PeopleSoft customers to migrate, but it’s simply not true. PeopleSoft and Oracle are based on radically different architectures and deployment models, and implementation can be costly and time-consuming.

Five Reasons PeopleSoft Customers Should Migrate to Microsoft Dynamics 365

Price and Total Cost of Ownership

PeopleSoft is costly to maintain. Microsoft Dynamics 365 is less expensive for initial licensing, implementation, and on-going maintenance. It is a better value proposition overall, and chances are it integrates with a lot of your other existing systems.

Increased Productivity

Dynamics 365 is designed to work like Excel and Outlook. With the vast array of open database tools from Microsoft and a host of other sources, Microsoft Dynamics 365 data can be readily queried, mined, extracted and interfaced with analytical applications, trading partner systems, third party applications, and productivity tools.

The Microsoft Dynamics 365 user interface is role-based, meaning each user has a home screen that is tailored to provide easy access to the activities and functions that they use every day – boosting productivity.

Cloud Services

Microsoft Dynamics 365 allows you to take advantage of cloud services, scale globally, run agile operations and connect employees by enabling real-time access to insights on any device.

You’ll love the Human Capital Management

Fans of PeopleSoft love it’s human capital management (HCM) capabilities. Well, I’m here to tell you that the HCM functionality within Dynamics 365 is stellar, and getting better all of the time. Dynamics 365 for Talent enables exceptional experiences across employee attraction, engagement, development, and retention.

The time is now to migrate to a less expensive, easy to use system that will have your users singing its praises. Let me know if you have any questions about a migration to Microsoft Dynamics 365 from PeopleSoft or another legacy product.

Best regards,

Robbie MorrisonChief Solution Strategist, SBS Group

About Robbie
Robbie Morrison has spent nearly 20 years helping customers build and deploy elegant technology and business solutions. From start-ups to enterprise-class organizations worldwide, his knowledge of the Microsoft Dynamics ecosystem and products helps SBS Group customers maximize ROI on technology investments.

Today, Robbie serves SBS Group customers in his role as Chief Solution Strategist where he provides thought leadership and manages the development of B2B solutions. Robbie received his MBA from the University of Georgia, Terry College of Business.https://www.linkedin.com/in/robbiemorrison

Leading Provider of Microsoft Cloud-based Business Solutions was named No. 55 on the List

EDISON, N.J. (PRWEB) NOVEMBER 17, 2017

SBS Group, a leading technology firm and industry innovator, was selected by ALM’s Consulting Magazine as one of the fastest growing firms in the consulting industry. At a gala awards dinner at New York’s Yale Club on Thursday, November 2nd, SBS Group was named as the No. 55 Fastest Growing Firm.

“To be honored as a Fastest Growing Firm by Consulting Magazine is a great testament to our commitment to evolve as a business,” remarked James Bowman, President and CEO of SBS Group. “The continued market growth of Microsoft’s cloud solutions, especially Dynamics 365, has afforded us a tremendous opportunity to grow our organization by delivering innovative, cloud-based business management solutions in an increasing number of markets.”

This year, 75 firms qualified for the ranking, which requires a minimum growth rate of 20 percent to be eligible. The Fastest Growing Firms will also be featured on http://www.consultingmag.com, as well as in the November issue of Consulting Magazine.

“With mind-numbing growth, there’s absolutely no doubt these 75 consulting firms are disrupting the industry from the bottom up—they are the profession’s Fastest Growing Firms for 2107,” said Joseph Kornik, Publisher & Editor-in-Chief of Consulting magazine. “Consulting’s Fastest Growing Firms recognition and award is aimed squarely at these up-and-coming firms that all too often fly below the radar because they’re not the biggest or the best-known firms. We want to bring these fast-growing firms to the forefront since they are the future of the consulting industry.”

About SBS Group
SBS Group is a Microsoft Master VAR and Indirect Cloud Solutions Provider (CSP) specializing in Microsoft Dynamics solutions and services for companies of all sizes. With more than 3,000 active customers served by over 300 employees across 40 locations in North America, SBS Group is a recognized leader in cloud ERP, CRM, productivity and business intelligence solutions. We simplify the cloud experience and help our customers realize business value faster with SBS Group AXIO solutions for Dynamics 365 and our streamlined RightPath approach. SBS Group is headquartered in Edison, NJ and has been a recognized leader in Microsoft business solutions for over 30 years. http://www.sbsgroupusa.com

About Consulting Magazine
Consulting® magazine is the flagship publication of the consulting profession featuring the latest information on consulting careers, thought leadership and corporate strategies. In addition to providing industry insights, Consulting® hosts award dinners as part of our Achievement Awards series – honoring Women Leaders in Consulting, The Top 25 Consultants, Social & Community Investment and Rising Stars of the Profession.

About ALM
ALM, an information and intelligence company, provides customers with critical news, data, analysis, marketing solutions and events to successfully manage the business of business.
Customers use ALM solutions to discover new ideas and approaches for solving business challenges, connect to the right professionals and peers creating relationships that move business forward, and compete to win through access to data, analytics and insight. ALM serves a community of over 6 million business professionals seeking to discover, connect and compete in highly complex industries. For more information, visit http://www.alm.com.

You may be wondering if it’s time to move Microsoft Dynamics and other legacy systems to the cloud, and it’s a great question many business leaders are pondering at this very moment. Choosing the cloud over on-premises systems introduces many questions and the process can be overwhelming. Making a knee-jerk decision about your cloud options can lead to costly mistakes as noted in the infographic, 3 Painful Mistakes to Avoid When Moving Dynamics to the Cloud.

Make Decisions That Nurture Your Business, Not Hinder It

Business technology is advancing at a remarkable rate and the cloud offers so much promise for many businesses. Cloud solutions are in the headlines and on the minds of business leaders in nearly every industry. You have probably heard from vendors, suppliers or others within your own network that are considering moving legacy systems to the cloud. While there are plenty of success stories, there are also plenty of costly blunders.

Moving Dynamics to the cloud isn’t the right solution for every business. Just because the cloud worked for a vendor or colleague, doesn’t mean your company should take the same path. Choosing just any cloud package, rushing to make the move or making sweeping decisions could lead to costly mistakes. Make the decisions that will nurture your business, not hinder it.

Take A Closer Look at Your Cloud Options (and Business)

Moving Microsoft Dynamics to the cloud can be an overwhelming decision to make, even with a skilled IT department, and you shouldn’t make it alone. But before you look at cloud options, we want you to take a closer look at your business.

Business requirements: First and foremost, outline your specific business operations, strategic plans and goals. Discuss the various departments, processes and data being generated across your organization. Document public and private data, workloads and the users of your business system.

Approach: Determine whether you have private and proprietary data, customer data or other information requiring different levels of security. Do employees need mobile access or will you create secure portals to work closer with vendors, suppliers and customers? How you capture, assess and use your data will impact the cloud options you may choose to deploy or avoid.

Value: Budget is always a consideration, and moving to the cloud often provides added value and reduces costs. You can alleviate many IT responsibilities and find increased overall productivity, among many benefits of moving to the cloud. Work with your cloud provider to talk through the pros and cons of moving to the cloud.

IT function: Not all businesses have a skilled IT department or the time to tend to maintaining business technology. Even with experienced IT staff, you may choose to focus their attention on other business-critical technology and leave backup, security and other routine maintenance to your cloud partner.

Support needs: With any change in business technology, you need to provide training and support to your employees. Training strengthens user adoption, which is necessary for a successful deployment whether on-premises or in the cloud. Ensure your cloud provider offers training and troubleshooting services.

Be Confident with Your Cloud Decision

Making the decision to move legacy systems into the cloud isn’t easy or straightforward. You must first look at your cloud options alongside business needs and goals. The process can be overwhelming, but you aren’t alone in the process.

The experts at SBS Group understand the unique licensing, support and ISV solutions within the Microsoft Dynamics 365 community. With our Stratos Cloud solutions, we know the cloud inside and out and how to provide seamless integrations and infrastructure management across multiple cloud and on-premises environments.

To get started, we invite you to take our complimentary Dynamics ERP Cloud Assessment survey and one of our cloud specialists will contact you to guide you through documenting your requirements to calculating the value and examining your support needs. Let’s work together to find the best cloud solution for your business.

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SBS Group integrates business management technology that enables companies to go from “what is” to “what’s possible.” Working with clients, not just for them we deliver fresh ideas to advance your business by bringing together local award winning subject matter experts, proven project methodology, and technical excellence.